Biko Mandela Gray
Biographic Data
| ID | 1447384 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Biko Mandela Gray |
| GIVEN NAMES | Biko Mandela |
| FAMILY NAME | Gray |
| SIGNATURE | GRAY B M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Syracuse University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9775-4578 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Trouble with Gender
On Black Accursedness
Futile Plans
Sometimes, plans fail. I had planned to write about how Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging spoke to the study of religion in various ways. But after encountering Map’s speaker on the ocean with Yemaya, my plans failed, and opened a different way of thinking about religion and its study. In this regard, this essay speaks to religion not as a category of human experience, but instead as a kind of movement that sets ou…
Phenomenology of Black Spirit
What if the protagonist of Hegel's Phenomenology were Black? Ryan Johnson and Biko Mandela Gray study the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Black Thought from Frederick Douglass to Angela DavisThe first philosophy book written, in a single voice, by a Black philosopher and a white philosopherDramatizes a dialectical parallelism between Hegel's Phenomenology and Black ThoughtDiversifies and transforms the history of philosop…
Phenomenology of Black Spirit
What if the protagonist of Hegel’s Phenomenology were Black? This staging of an elongated dialectical parallelism between Hegel’s classic text and major 19th-20th-century Black thinkers explodes the western canon of philosophy. From the first moment — the Master-Slave dialectic, Frederick Douglass, and Ida B. Wells — to the last — Unhappy Consciousness, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis — Hegel’s abstract dialectic is transformed and critiqued by the l…
Now It is Always Now
One wonders why the world is “surprised,” again and again, by images and vindications of state-sanctioned violence. This article draws from the work of Toni Morrison, Christina Sharpe, and Calvin Warren to suggest that this is the case because blackness is lived the “always now” of the hold. The “always now” draws from Morrison's Beloved, Sharpe's '"residence time,” and Warren's “black time” to demonstrate that blackness exists in a temporality t…
White Too Long
Africana Esoteric Studies and Western Intellectual Hegemony
This essay continues the conversation begun in Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There Is a Mystery” (2015) regarding Africana esoteric traditions and the emerging discipline devoted to their critical examination: Africana esoteric studies (AES). We provide an expanded rationale for this multifaceted endeavor, while at the same time offering a collegial exchange to the critique of AES by Wouter Hanegraaff in his article “The …
The Religion of White Rage
Critically analyses the historical, cultural and political dimensions of white religious rage in America, past and present Argues that religion and race – not economics – are the primary motivating factors for the rise of white rage and white supremacist sentiment in the USA Makes key interventions in labour studies and American religious studies Examines the mythological and sociological construct of the 'white labourer' Uncovers the sociologica…
Intimately Engaging with Religion and Sexuality
The Deliverance of Christian Queer
Religion in/and Black Lives Matter
Recent scholarship on Black Lives Matter has focused on the political, economic, intellectual, and theological context/s out of which the movement arises, but there has been little engagement with the movement from the perspective of philosophy of religion or history of religions. Phenomenologically, Black life in the United States is relegated to the unthought experience and habitual reenactment of tying one's shoes. But Black people are not sho…
God Is a White Racist
African Americans and their ancestors have been subjected to forms of violence premised upon the supremacy of the state as ultimate, immutable, transcendent. This supremacy usually manifests itself as an insidious, covert form of white supremacy coded as “law and order.” This article investigates the nature of white supremacy as state violence in the wake of the deaths of both Eric Garner and Mike Brown, arguing that the vindication of police off…
White Too Long
Africana Esoteric Studies and Western Intellectual Hegemony
This essay continues the conversation begun in Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There Is a Mystery” (2015) regarding Africana esoteric traditions and the emerging discipline devoted to their critical examination: Africana esoteric studies (AES). We provide an expanded rationale for this multifaceted endeavor, while at the same time offering a collegial exchange to the critique of AES by Wouter Hanegraaff in his article “The …
God Is a White Racist
African Americans and their ancestors have been subjected to forms of violence premised upon the supremacy of the state as ultimate, immutable, transcendent. This supremacy usually manifests itself as an insidious, covert form of white supremacy coded as “law and order.” This article investigates the nature of white supremacy as state violence in the wake of the deaths of both Eric Garner and Mike Brown, arguing that the vindication of police off…
Religion in/and Black Lives Matter
Recent scholarship on Black Lives Matter has focused on the political, economic, intellectual, and theological context/s out of which the movement arises, but there has been little engagement with the movement from the perspective of philosophy of religion or history of religions. Phenomenologically, Black life in the United States is relegated to the unthought experience and habitual reenactment of tying one's shoes. But Black people are not sho…
The Religion of White Rage
Critically analyses the historical, cultural and political dimensions of white religious rage in America, past and present Argues that religion and race – not economics – are the primary motivating factors for the rise of white rage and white supremacist sentiment in the USA Makes key interventions in labour studies and American religious studies Examines the mythological and sociological construct of the 'white labourer' Uncovers the sociologica…
Intimately Engaging with Religion and Sexuality
The Deliverance of Christian Queer
White Too Long
Africana Esoteric Studies and Western Intellectual Hegemony
This essay continues the conversation begun in Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There Is a Mystery” (2015) regarding Africana esoteric traditions and the emerging discipline devoted to their critical examination: Africana esoteric studies (AES). We provide an expanded rationale for this multifaceted endeavor, while at the same time offering a collegial exchange to the critique of AES by Wouter Hanegraaff in his article “The …
Phenomenology of Black Spirit
What if the protagonist of Hegel's Phenomenology were Black? Ryan Johnson and Biko Mandela Gray study the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Black Thought from Frederick Douglass to Angela DavisThe first philosophy book written, in a single voice, by a Black philosopher and a white philosopherDramatizes a dialectical parallelism between Hegel's Phenomenology and Black ThoughtDiversifies and transforms the history of philosop…
Phenomenology of Black Spirit
What if the protagonist of Hegel’s Phenomenology were Black? This staging of an elongated dialectical parallelism between Hegel’s classic text and major 19th-20th-century Black thinkers explodes the western canon of philosophy. From the first moment — the Master-Slave dialectic, Frederick Douglass, and Ida B. Wells — to the last — Unhappy Consciousness, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis — Hegel’s abstract dialectic is transformed and critiqued by the l…
Now It is Always Now
One wonders why the world is “surprised,” again and again, by images and vindications of state-sanctioned violence. This article draws from the work of Toni Morrison, Christina Sharpe, and Calvin Warren to suggest that this is the case because blackness is lived the “always now” of the hold. The “always now” draws from Morrison's Beloved, Sharpe's '"residence time,” and Warren's “black time” to demonstrate that blackness exists in a temporality t…
Futile Plans
Sometimes, plans fail. I had planned to write about how Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging spoke to the study of religion in various ways. But after encountering Map’s speaker on the ocean with Yemaya, my plans failed, and opened a different way of thinking about religion and its study. In this regard, this essay speaks to religion not as a category of human experience, but instead as a kind of movement that sets ou…
The Trouble with Gender
On Black Accursedness
Philosophy (10 works) · Race, History, and American Society (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Theological Perspectives and Practices (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · History (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)